I saw no difference between the two shootings in terms of the degree of response on FB, and I am not sure FB is really a good metric anyway. And the news coverage is certainly identical.

So yeah, I'm confused.

That's interesting to me. We have a fair amount of overlap amongst our friends' lists, too. I've seen almost no mention of it on FB, even days on, nor the burning down of the Joplin Mosque. Lots of Marvin the Martian on Mars, though.

'15 Goals:

Not only irrational but hippocritical (cast system, slums and all). I have to wonder if such things would even be newsworthy there and in many other countries, as long as the victims belonged to certain groups.

What has India's other social issues (and they have quite a few, as do most other countries surely) and slums have got to do with some folks' anger with the US as misdirected as that maybe?

FWIW if this happened in India itself it probably would garner less attention and outrage (learning to live with terrorism) and that is probably the Hippocritical part.

I'm not that interested in the FB traffic -- I don't think that's a terribly good metric of the world at large. (If it were, my facebook traffic would tell me that the world at large is very interested in issues adversely affecting same-sex families & trans folk of all kinds, full of distance runners and nearly 100% concerned that Obama is not as left-leaning as he ought to be.). However, my entirely subjective sense is that the media coverage of this latest shooting has not been as intense as that for other mass shootings. I received a push notification from the NYTimes app on my iPhone while I was in the car listing to NPR. I expected the news to come on with breaking coverage, but there was none. I noted that in the next day that the news lead with stories of Olympic medals, and then talked about the shooting. I even wondered if the FBI was encouraging some kind of news blackout for investigatory reasons. Seems like the coverage has picked up a bit in the subsequent days. I don't know what the objectives measures of inches and minutes would tell us.

'15 Goals:

If this massacre hasn't struck the chord you might expect, (although it's been dominating the top of my go-to news source, news.google.com for days), you shouldn't be surprised. It's not racism, it's numbness. People have been killing each other since over religion since time immemorial, and we live in a post-9/11 world were religiously-based violence has seemingly ramped up, so as awful as the Wisconsin shootings were, it's just not as stunning as Aurora was. We've all become jaded.

Move the Aurora theater to Tel Aviv and make the gunman Palestinian, and we're still horrified, but maybe not all that surprised, given the history of violence. No, I'm not trying to single out Palestinians -- it's an analogy. I know there's been plenty of fighting on both parts for thousands of years over that bit of desert.

On your deathbed, you won't wish that you'd spent more time at the office. But you will wish that you'd spent more time running. Because if you had, you wouldn't be on your deathbed.

If this massacre hasn't struck the chord you might expect, (although it's been dominating the top of my go-to news source, news.google.com for days), you shouldn't be surprised. It's not racism, it's numbness. People have been killing each other since over religion since time immemorial, and we live in a post-9/11 world were religiously-based violence has seemingly ramped up, so as awful as the Wisconsin shootings were, it's just not as stunning as Aurora was. We've all become jaded.

Move the Aurora theater to Tel Aviv and make the gunman Palestinian, and we're still horrified, but maybe not all that surprised, given the history of violence. No, I'm not trying to single out Palestinians -- it's an analogy. I know there's been plenty of fighting on both parts for thousands of years over that bit of desert.

I think you make a very valid point, and this is likely the core of it. But it happened on OUR soil to our people, turbans or no turbans. The religious aspect of it shouldn't matter. Isn't that the founding purpose of the US?

'15 Goals:

• Do some dus...and some CX...and some tandem gravel...and some podiums...

• PRs

• 130#s (or less)

DoppleBock

posted: 8/7/2012 at 9:29 AM

We live in different worlds - The reaction in all the media and personal contacts has been similar to more than any other tragic event with the exception of the CO Movie Theatre shooting - That was on a whole different level. It is dominant andthe biggest part of any new media I chose. It is the most likely personal discussion that happens anywhere I am during the day.

Also not to forget a Police Officer took either 8 or 9 bullets - We are still hopeful he will recover, although the psycological trauma for him and all the victims will last a lifetime.

The part that I am confused by - The people on this thread that think the reaction is not strong enough or people are not horrified enough. Since a large group of us are seeing - feeling the same reactions or similar to all the other horrible events in recent times ... What more are you expecting?

I think you make a very valid point, and this is likely the core of it. But it happened on OUR soil to our people, turbans or no turbans. The religious aspect of it shouldn't matter. Isn't that the founding purpose of the US?

No, I don't think that's the correct interpretation of the founding purpose of the US. But, I might be wrong, as I may not understand what your statement / question really is asking.

I think you make a very valid point, and this is likely the core of it. But it happened on OUR soil to our people, turbans or no turbans. The religious aspect of it shouldn't matter. Isn't that the founding purpose of the US?

I think that religion may be part of it, but not all. A big difference between these two events as I see it is that the Wisconsin shooting is more explainable. As disturbing as the reason is, we know it. It was a hate crime. Will we ever know what really set the guy in Colorado off? When tragedies like this occur people want to know why. Where religion comes into play is that I think people tend to tread lightly when it comes up (or not participate at all).

I truly believe that most people are equally saddened by these two tragedies but their reaction can be perceived as different in part for the reasons I stated above. I am also not sure how useful social media like FB is when trying to gauge people's reactions.

What has India's other social issues (and they have quite a few, as do most other countries surely) and slums have got to do with some folks' anger with the US as misdirected as that maybe?

FWIW if this happened in India itself it probably would garner less attention and outrage (learning to live with terrorism) and that is probably the Hippocritical part.

Some are quoted complaining that the US did not protect these people, yet si pointed out and you confirmed, they have their item issues looking out for their people. It was not a knock on india, simply pointing out how I'll thought out the criticism was.

"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand

This is my concern. And people keep feeling the need to defensively point out that they, personally, never have posted re: previous shootings. Fine. That's not my issue, and never was. My beef is the fact that even 2 weeks before the Sikh church shooting there were enormous numbers of people collectively falling all over themselves to post items expressing grief and support for the CO theater shooting victims, and this has been the case for at least the past 5 years every time a similar tragedy occurs. So in the ensuing 2 weeks before the Sikh tragedy all of those hundreds of unrelated people suddenly changed their MO in terms of how to respond on social media to a horrific act of violence? I'm not buying it.

I am not Sikh (in terms of religious belief I don't really believe anything and am married to an atheist), so I don't emphasize with these people based upon ethnicity or religion. I empathize because they were a group of people gathered together peacefully and were targeted because of who they were or who the shooter believed them to be. This event is being deemed domestic terrorism, but at its core it's also a hate crime. The non-randomness of this tragedy is particularly awful. Had the scenario been reversed (minority shooter going after a more mainstream US religion/ethnicity) I don't think we'd be having this discussion at all.

This?

Is kind of wrong. It is. You do not have your finger on the pulse of the entire set of social networks nationwide. Your stubborn defense that you DO know this was something I kind of wrote off as "well, this is a hot button; everyone has one" but now think it is something deeper. I have pointed out several other group shootings that didn't engender the same kind of reaction you seem to have pulled from the Batman thing and decided to collectively lump as "everything". No. No. No. You are simply wrong.

You do not know everything about everything. Yet the way you chose to fingerwave this did feel kind of like a personal attack on others, including me, and you don't know shit from shinola regarding how I feel and what my reactions are.